Are you exhausting yourself by chasing the next best thing?

I’m currently going through the Black Mirror series at the moment… yeah I know, I’m late to the game! Expect a sequence of inspired articles over the coming weeks.

I watched a brilliant episode last night called “Nosedive”. It envisions a world dependent on social media and shows similarities to a credit rating system that already exists in China where people are rated for their good or bad behaviour. The ability to get around, buy certain things and get access to certain places all depends on your reputation on social media. This is qualified through an Uber-style rating. The main character is a beautiful redhead called Lacey. She’s unhappy with life and desperate to get her personal score over 4.5 so she can buy a new apartment. She becomes obsessed with her social status and goes out of her way to get a five-star rating from every person that crosses her path. The irony is, the harder she tries to be liked by everyone, the less genuine she becomes and this really backfires on her.

Have you seen this episode of Black Mirror yet?! If not go check it out and leave a comment below. Would love to hear what came through for you after watching it. The rest of this post contains some spoilers so maybe come back to after you’ve seen it.

Lacey desperately chases after something she ‘thinks’ she wants, and the more obsessed she becomes, the more she is challenged, exhausted, beaten and broken down. Her desire for a higher rating is from a place of unworthiness and desperation She believes that if she upgrades to a new home, so many other areas of her life will fall into place. She needs the home to do this. She is evidently brainwashed into thinking she needs to upgrade her life and reacts from a place of not being enough, or having enough. This creates more suffering for her instead of ease or success.

Lacey’s quest for popularity leads her into a downward spiral. At one point on her journey, she ends up having to hitchhike. Whilst standing at the side of the road people are down-scoring her just for trying to hitch a ride. An older lady driving a lorry pulls over and offers to take Lacey to her destination. Lacey checks this lady’s social score, see’s she is a 1.3, and instantly judges her and refuses to take the offer. With a little persuasion (and no other choice) Lacey jumps into the lorry and takes a ride. The lady happens to be incredibly friendly, kind and playful. She explains that she used to be totally obsessed with maintaining a good reputation and then one day gave up on it all. Despite being “cancelled” by society for having a low social score, she does what she wants, says what she wants, and she’s carefree. She explains to Lacey that trying to keep up with the status quo will destroy her soul.

The way Lacey chases happiness in this TV show symbolises the Hedonic Treadmill principle. The hedonic treadmill principle is the idea that a human’s happiness will always return to a baseline level after a new experience. No matter what we achieve or receive in life we will always return back to a ‘set point’ emotionally, and this ‘set point’ is different for all of us. When chasing material things we experience bursts of happiness that are short-lived. We get used to a new situation, we get a taste of something we wanted and then we go back to the original feelings about life before we received those things. It's a never-ending cycle where people keep seeking a dopamine hit, but it doesn't permanently change how they feel about life. It’s an emotional hamster wheel that has us spending our lives chasing the next best thing and never being truly grateful and appreciative for all we have, and who we have in this present moment. It takes us away from contentment with life, as it is.

"You're running but you're on that treadmill and you're not getting anywhere in terms of happiness," - Wendy Zukerman

It’s very clear that this social scoring system sets people against each other if the rating is not high. Lacey demonstrates the way we humans will comply with societal expectations and focus on maintaining an acceptable reputation just to feel a sense of belonging. We also see her chasing after a perceived sense of happiness is not long-lasting. By the end, she’s so exhausted and broken, she doesn’t give a fuck what people think anymore and lets rip with her true self expression. I LOVE IT!

In Buddhist teachings, there is something called ‘the eight worldly winds’ which keep us attached to the material world and are said to blow us around inside an emotional shit storm if we do not find a spiritual practice where we can practice cultivating equanimity within ourselves. These worldly winds are success and failure, pleasure and pain, fame and disrepute, praise and blame. This video dives into our need to maintain our image and reputation.